Chapter VII

“Her sweetest minde
’Twixt mildness tempered and low courtesie,
Could leave as soon to be as to be kinde.”

P. FLETCHER.

Late in the afternoon a note was brought to Violet. She had been very dejected all the day, a mood of mind which for the last two hours had changed, but only changed into a restless longing to hear something. She had been afraid to go out; afraid of seeing or meeting anyone; and yet so desirous to know what was going forward, that the confinement was a pain. Latterly the dread that Ida might think she had been to blame, had drawn Lionel on, had been creeping over her like a horrible nightmare. When she looked back, when she remembered Albert’s warning, how she had received it and how she had overlooked it, the idea, however horrible, seemed possible. Altogether she was in that state of mind and spirits when a bell, a step, a note, or whatsoever the interruption to mere surmise may be, causes a rapture that borders on insanity.

She seized the note with trembling fingers, and her last, worst fear was put to flight.

“MY DEAREST VIOLET,--Lionel has been with me, and I believe he has
gone away from Ashford. As, however, I am not quite certain of this,
I will not ask you to come till to-morrow morning. Will you come
then, and for a long visit? I long for your kind advice and help.
Ever yours affectionately,

“IDA HAMILTON.”

When Violet and Ida met, it was as people meet after an event, an estrangement, or an affliction. They were affectionate but shy, and sat down in silence. On Violet’s side there was agitation as well. She could not forget that it was she who had injured Ida; that, had she been less blind and wilful, this evil might have been foreseen and prevented; nor till Ida had spoken could she entirely divest herself of the dread that in her inmost heart Ida saw this fact, or vaguely felt it.

Perhaps Ida did so far perceive it as to make her suspect the cause of Violet’s very evident agitation; for her first words were to place her in the position of the aggrieved party.

“Lionel left a message for you, Violet,” she said, breaking the silence by the pronunciation of the name which was the cause of constraint; “he says you must try and forgive him; and indeed, Violet, you must.”

Violet was surprised--surprised as Lionel had been--at Ida’s calmness and self-control.

“Oh! Ida, how can I?” she cried with quivering lips.

“Because he is so very miserable. I shall have to write to him some day to tell him what Uncle Ashford says, and I should be so glad when I do write if I could say you spoke kindly of him.”

“But, Ida, I cannot,” Violet said with warmth. “It is no use to speak kindly and to feel as I do. You do not know, even you do not know, how he has deceived me. After having taught me to look up to him and trust him, and much more besides ... it is beyond forgiveness--for a long, long time, at least!”

“I wish you would not speak so hardly. He did not mean to deceive. He struggled long. I do not defend all, but you must not be harsh. You should pity him.”

“When I say I cannot forgive, Ida, I mean nothing of wishing ill, nothing, as far as I know that is uncharitable or unkind. So far from wishing him ill, I still wish him, dear Ida, to find at last that good he has so madly thrown away, and so little deserves.”

And she rose and kissed Ida as she spoke.

But Ida shrank and trembled, and did not respond. She was soft, but not weak. The thread was broken that had bound her hopes to Lionel’s love.

“Oh! Ida, are you very unhappy?” Violet cried agitatedly, for that dejected but tearless grief spoke more in one so young and gentle of real unhappiness, than tears would have done.

“No, Violet, not for myself. I never did, I do not now think that anything I have to bear myself is difficult to bear, but I am unhappy for Lionel, and still more unhappy for Uncle Ashford. Poor Uncle Ashford!” she continued, and a tear fell on her cheek, “I am afraid it will be a great blow to him. He is getting old, and has been so anxious; and I think now, if he had a happy home, he would be good if he could.”

Violet felt her blood boil with indignation against Lionel; but she had seen that rage against him was not the way to soothe Ida.

“You have not told him yet?” was her only remark.

“No. I will tell papa to-night, and go to him to-morrow morning. I waited for you, Violet; I wanted your advice as to what I should say. I would make the best of it for poor Lionel if I could.”

And seeing that this was her chief desire, that resentment had found no entrance to her breast, and that she could not better comfort her than by helping her in this point, Violet, with true friendliness, banished her own selfish feelings, and gave the best of her attention and the best of her judgment to assist Ida in placing his conduct in the least unfavourable light.

Sir William, after the first surprise, and the first feeling of discomfiture in a long-sustained plot, was over, bore the news with equanimity. He had no particular liking to Lionel, and no special interest in the marriage. His interest had been to perform his promise to his dying wife, and his conscience assuring him that this had been fully carried out, he resigned himself to the disappointment with a few just but severe expressions.

“Nobody asked him to struggle,” was his reply to his daughter’s gentle words of excuse. “His duty was to know his own mind, and make it known to us.”

It is possible that the mere fact of Lionel’s ill-success with Violet softened Sir William’s feelings towards him. He wrote him a sharp letter, and there with him the matter ended.

But it was otherwise with Lord Ashford. Ida’s task with him was a painful one. He had cherished the plan, from many complicated feelings, for many years, and every year, as it passed, had added charms to the picture. A love almost as strong as a father’s to Ida, was added to his other less tangible feelings, and no doubt of ultimate success had ever presented itself to his fancy. He had been irritated by delay, but he had never ceased to store up hope for the future.

He seemed stunned when she first made him understand the fact; and afterwards, in talking it over, he wept, and bitterly. She did all she could to soothe and comfort him, and excuse Lionel; but every effort and every part of her efforts was in vain. He spoke of Lionel with a violence of resentment that astonished as much as it grieved her, and he shocked her further by sarcastic allusions to the disinterestedness of Violet’s friendship for her.

“I knew she was one of your saints,” he said bitterly; “outward saint, inward hypocrite.”

Ida, gentle and soft and forbearing, so long as he spoke, if harshly, yet justly, of his own son, fired up at this insinuation, and for the first time in their lives a coldness ensued between them. Ida, indeed distressed and unhappy, after a moment’s warmth, soothed and kissed him, and excused herself by pointing out the injustice of his suspicions; but he was thoroughly out of sorts, and was not to be soothed, and Ida left him at last in a dejection of spirits which made life assume a dreary darkness of hue to her youthful eyes.

Lionel had indeed dealt hardly with her, in leaving her, blameless, to bear the brunt of the battle; in laying on her, to whom to give pain was worse than to feel it, the whole burden of the disclosure.

No great improvement followed. He allowed her to visit him, but he was a man who, with good impulses, had no self-restraint, and it was evident that the disappointment to his wishes was doing him serious harm.

“Poor Lionel,” Ida thought in her pitiful thoughts, “he meant to do so much good, and he has made himself and everybody miserable. It seems hard for such a little fault.”

Her anxiety regarding Lord Ashford helped, however, to divert Ida’s thoughts; and her father’s anxiety that there should be no talk in the country, spurred her on to take part in her usual occupations, and assisted her in throwing off her depression.

About a week after the event Violet, looking out of window one morning, saw her and Sir William pass on their way to the village. It was a very unaccustomed sight, for Sir William, though occasionally to be seen walking fast, riding, or driving, was too shy a man to wander, as Mr. Osborne did, with Violet. Nothing but the desire to please Violet had drawn him to the sequestered hamlet of Little Boscombe; and Holywell was, compared with that, a public place.

Ida nodded as they went by, but did not stop.

“Poor Ida!” Violet exclaimed to her mother, describing what she had seen. “Was there ever anybody so good and unselfish as she is? I do not see how an angel even could have borne such a thing better.”

Mrs. Osborne acquiesced, and with warmth.

“I cannot do as she does,” Violet continued. “I cannot go about as she does. I feel much more like poor Lord Ashford, cross with myself and all the world. If I stir out, I fancy people are looking at me and suspecting me. I am sure Mr. Pope suspects something, for he asked me if I knew why Mr. Vane was gone; and I know I looked guilty, and so I am afraid of meeting him, and afraid of meeting Sir William and Lord Ashford. If it is good for a person to feel so ashamed he hardly can lift up his head, then, mamma, some great good is being done to me.”

Violet continued to talk in this dejected strain. The sense of the disappointment and sorrow she had caused had fastened on her spirits. Her vivid fancy went over the past months, and her conscience, quickened by what had occurred here and there, recalled expressions and incidents which ought to have warned her of the impending danger. Dwelling morbidly on these things, she came to blame herself in a degree that was unjust; for it was one of those cases where afterwards it is easy to see dangers and moralise on them--dangers which eyes bent in a contrary direction at the moment of their occurrence cannot see.

She was still lingering in the drawing-room, working, but working spiritlessly, when her mother, who was leaving the room, said--

“There is Miss Hamilton at the gate. Have her in here, darling, to cheer you.”

Violet flew to the door and invited Ida to come in. She had called to see if Violet would go home with her, Sir William having already departed.

Violet consented, and Ida said--

“Was it not kind of papa to go with me to the school? It was his own proposal. He said, as there were so many of his tenants there, he thought he ought; but I know the reason really was, because he thought I was dull, and thought it would please me to see him interested.”

“And how did you get on?” Violet asked curiously. “Was Amy very shy?”

“Rather; but she heard a little class, and questioned them nicely. They did not know much, but papa, who does not think poor children know _anything_, was quite surprised, and complimented her.”

“What a pity,” Violet said, smiling; “now she will be set up. Still I am glad.”

“As we came home, papa seemed to be quite interested, and asked me a great many questions; among others he asked me what Miss White’s salary was, and he does not think it is enough. Do you think....” She had for a moment forgotten the late events, and stopped suddenly, with a blush, as she remembered them; after one instant, however, she went on steadily. “Do you think Lionel will object to a contribution from papa? You know the school was his poor mother’s plan, and he may not like help.”

Violet felt very awkward, and did not know what opinion to give. She was unwilling to lose such assistance for Amy, but felt the barrier between them all and Lionel.

“Might not Mr. Pope ask him?” she said, after some thought. “If it came from Mr. Pope, he need have no hesitation in saying exactly what he liked best.”

“Yes--you are right. That will be the way to manage it, and I will tell papa what you advise.”

“_Think_, not _advise_,” Violet said, with a blush as she left the room to get ready. No coquette, sighing over unmade conquests, ever felt a humiliation so great as was Violet’s in the thought of her successful ones. They seemed to meet and to thwart her on every side.